Faculty Profile

Kevin Pratt received his bachelor’s in architecture (Magna Cum Laude) from Columbia University and an M.A. from the Environment and Energy Programme at the Architectural Association in London. He has been a visiting critic and lecturer at Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. A registered architect in the state of New York, Pratt has 13 years of experience as a researcher and designer. He is expert in the use of computational technologies and their application to the process of sustainable design. Pratt joined the full-time faculty at Cornell in 2007. His current research interests include the development of sustainable componentized housing systems and technologies, the use of computational simulation in sustainable design processes, and the design of dynamic enclosure and control systems. He teaches seminars and lecture classes in sustainable design and building technology, and, since the fall of 2006, has been running a series of research studios, in collaboration with Visiting Assistant Professor Dana Cupkova, that focus on the integration of parametric computational technologies and environmental analysis in the design process. These studios, which emphasize the tight coupling of the built environment with specific local cultures and ecologies, have traveled to Slovakia and United Arab Emirates; a fourth installment in the series will be taught in the spring of 2009. In the fall of 2008 Pratt was the recipient of two seed grants from the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future. The first, received in collaboration with the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), supports the development of building integrated vibro-power wind-energy systems. The second, received in collaboration with MAE and the Cornell Program for Computer Graphics[AG4], supports research into digital environments that integrate numerical simulation into the design process. In addition to his work at Cornell University, Pratt is a contributing writer to Artforum and has written articles for various design and general interest publications including TimeOut New York, Monitor, Artbyte, and Art on Paper. In 2008 he and Cupkova founded Epiphyte Lab, an interdisciplinary design and research practice. From 2004 to 2007 he was director of research at KieranTimberlake Associates in Philadelphia where his projects included developing daylighting, shading, and thermal simulation analysis for the Sidwell Friends Middle School (a LEED Platinum building and winner of an AIA COTE top 10 green buildings award), the design and detailing of the solar thermal façade at the new Sculpture Building at Yale University, and the development of design, sustainable strategies, and technologies for the Institute for Energy, Environment, and Ecology at the University of Calgary. He also led research into the design of prefabricated residential and commercial buildings. Prior to relocating to London in 2002, he spent five years at the design and façade consulting firm Evans Heintges Architects in New York City, and also worked at the seminal green architectural practice Sculpture in the Environment.

• KieranTimberlake Associates LLP